Flash
A light flickers.
The darkness broken.
"One," the tired voice says, gently. Her long, thin fingers approach the match towards the candle. The wick catches the flames in a small spark.
The smell of chocolate fills the girl with excitement. She has been longing for this.
Flash
"Two," she whispers.
Her fingers are covered in rashes and burns.
The light clones itself once more.
The second pillar lights up, revealing more of the crispy chocolate desert waiting to be cracked open.
Flash
"Three," the voice continues, ever so softly.
Her voice is hoarse, deep and harsh.
Chocolate begins to mix with melted wax and fire in the girl's nose. She wants to blow them. She wants to shatter the surface of the chocolate world. She wants to cut the ritual short. But she knows better than to be hasty.
Flash
"Four," she coughs.
Hurry, hurry, mother. She won't wait much longer. The fire towers of Chocolateland are almost all lit.
The circle is closing.
Flash
The girl doesn't wait for words anymore. She takes a deep breath, and forces the air out of her lungs, blowing the candle, bringing darkness to the world again.
"Happy Birthday, Shiho."
The girl looks around, looking desperately for a mother to hug.
But she's alone. Nobody's there. Only the darkness.
Pitch, black, darkness
She sighs.
The darkness fades in a thick fog. Everything is grey and blurry.
She takes the cloth from her desk and wipes the mist from the glass lens.
"Everything alright?"
She blinks her eye and inspects the other one last time. She does not look at her boyfriend, the abyss of her own iris — false as it is — is far more appealing.
"I never had a proper birthday," she says, still lost in the dark.
He leans on the desk beside her, resting his legs after the long day. "You never had a proper childhood."
Shiho gives her eye a last sweep of cloth. She reaches for her right eyelid and pulls it up. With care, she brings the prosthesis to the hole in her face. While she stares at the mirror, Mitsuhiko looks away.
"I had, though," she says. Her boyfriend looks back. She blinks a few time, rolls her eyes, and looks at him too. "With you guys."
She smiles.
He smiles.
"You know what I mean," he says, leaning towards her.
She stops him with her hand. "I do."
She grabs the lubricant bottle and proceeds to caring to her right eye.
"I don't even know my birthday"—she swipes her oily finger across her cryolite eye—"I know Ai Haibara's, but not mine."
Mitsuhiko chuckles. "What does that mean?"
Shiho gets up, stretches and yawns.
"It means, there is a day I came out of my mother's womb"—she gives him a sorrowful look—"and I don't know when it was."
He turns away and walks to the kitchen. "What's wrong with Ai's?" he asks while opening the fridge.
Shiho gathers the ocular care tools and makes her way to the bathroom. "She is not me."
The young man comes to the bathroom door with a can of fresh beer. The shower starts pouring water.
"Ai Haibara is the girl I fell in love with"—he drinks—"I still love her very much. She's my girlfriend, even."
The water pours louder.
"Except now, she's called Shiho Miyano."
The water stops. "We're not having this conversation again," the woman says from the shower.
The glass pane opens on a tired woman whose eyes say long about her patience.
"Fine," the man says. "What do you want in your rice?"
Shiho silently fetches a towel and without a word, dries herself.
"Ai," she says, "was but a façade, a lie, a mask I wore to hide from—" "I know."—Mitsuhiko walks to her—"I know."
He takes her in his arms. "I know."
"Chazuke," she whispers.
"Chazuke sounds good."
Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya goes back to the kitchen, leaving Shiho alone in the bathroom.
As she finishes drying, she hears him curse in the kitchen. He just realized his clothes were wet. She smiles at the mirror.
"Happy Birthday, Shiho."
